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MGM Purchase Gives Sony An Edge In Disc Format War
Grump writes "The New York Times reports: 'The purchase of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by a group led by Sony will not only give the company an enormous film library but also considerable power in its fight to set the format for the next generation of digital video discs.' The article goes on to suggest that Sony is gearing up for another Betamax-style failure."
digital versatile disc ??
Geeks everywhere want to know!
MGM bought UA in the 80's. Time bought Warner Brothers a while back too. Nothing sudden about media consolidation.
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What killed the Betamax format was that they were not willing to share to technology with other manufacturers, and that paved the way for the VHS format to dominate the market...shame, I would have rather watched vids on Beta all these years - picture quality far superior than VHS.
These happen regardless of the president in the office at the time.
PlayStation. PlayStation 2. Compact Disc itself, co-developed with Philips.
True, Betamax the format is dead, but Betacam the format and Betamax the copyright precedent live on for now.
"Sony also announced yesterday that it had reached an agreement with Comcast to offer Sony and MGM movies over Comcast's video-on-demand systems and on new cable channels that it would form with the Sony group."
From an article here.
I don't know about you, but i hardly ever go to the movie store anymore (unless i want to own a DVD). I rent most of my titles from Time Warner's video-on-demand. This agreement opens up that whole distribution channel (no pun intended) for all of those classic MGM titles.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
And to clarify further, in either case scenario, MS will win because both Next-gen DVD formats will most likely use MS codec.
At this point, I think HD DVD (by NEC/Toshiba) is a history. And I wouldn't be surprised even if Sony has a second thought on the codec they will use for distribution. I want to see Sony leaving MS or coming up with something other than MS codec.
I would estimate DVD quality to be about 3x VHS (about 2x more pixels, and a much better color space).
HDTV has 6x as many pixels as DVD, at 2 Mega pixels.
From my experience with a 10-foot wide projection system (NEC LX135 QXGA) I have at home, anything below DVD is almost unwatchable. DVD looks glorious until you pump a true HDTV signal into the system and then what you have is in many ways better than going to the theater (at least the crappy cineplexes in this town).
Now you might carp who the hell has 10' wide projection systems to really enjoy this kind of experience. The percentage is small today, but I predict that DLP will cause hi-res projection prices to plummet in the next 2-3 years. Mostly because DLP will experience the same kind of Moore's law improvement as any other type of chip type process, while other methods rely more on bulk size improvements.
In fact while it has been long to make it out of the Labs, Hi-Res displays will probably be common and affordable in Ultra-HD resolutions in 5 to 10 years time. (over 8 mega pixels) in large sizes.
I suspect U-HD will be overkill for home, and in most ways exceeds 35mm film quality when you factor in film speed (grainer for faster) and editing and reprocessing (loosing quality at each step). Sure, theoretically 35mm film has 16 Meg pixel, but in practice it is more like 3-6 (not much more than HD). And that's only if you can find a theater that knows how to keep a critical focus, and whose machines don't jitter uncontrollably because they are trying to squeeze the last penny out the damn things before going digital, which they desperately want to avoid as long a possible because first generation equipment is expensive and will suck compared to equipment available in 2-3 years time.
Even without 10' screens, in 2 or 3 years, WUXGA screens (1920-1200) will be common and affordable in laptops with Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD built in. The near photographic look will motivate people to upgrade their home viewing experience. One of the biggest reasons for HDTV slow acceptance has been the failure of early systems to actually display the full quality that the standard supports (most systems today advertised as HDTV still don't). That and of course the lack of actual HDTV content to be viewed.
I suspect I will be one of the ones to say HD is good enough once we really get there. My father has trouble seeing the detail of DVD. So many people don't have the visually acuity to really appreciate the difference. Beyond HD I suspect the majority of people won't really be able to see much of a difference. I'm speaking of REAL HD. 1080p at 60 frames a second is really sweet, but over the air stops just short of this with p at only 24 and 30 fps. My prediction is that eventually 1080p at 60fps will become a standard, one that holds for a couple of decades or more, but we could get stuck at 1080i or 720p, which is a shame because the difference is quite noticeable up to this. Digital photography might still motivate people to buy U-HD projection systems for displaying stills.
As for me -- GIVE ME BLU-RAY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!!
(while the CRTs hold out on my current system)
Letter To Iran
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Oh Sony, first betamax, and your memory stick
Also their Minidisc, and their SACD...
I think we can thank Philips for the CD, not Sony. Check the second paragraph from the bottom.
Blue LEDs used to be really expensive (they still are, compared to RED or fake Green), but they are still cheap enough to make [your favorite consumer electrics device] look cool.
I don't care about LEDs. I care about laser diodes. Blues currently can't be bought at any price.
In fact, there are only two "cost-effective" ways to make a blue laser:
1. Argon laser. This is pretty inefficient (none of the blue lines of argon are high gain) and costly to manufacture, due to the exotic gases, vacuum equipment, and mirrors involved
2. Dye laser. There are dyes that will lase in the blue region. Besides being inefficient, building a continuous wave dye laser is a very difficult proposition.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
CD audio saw a similar success (DAT doesn't count, its a pro format, which, incidentaly, Betamax has become (or stayed, really))
DAT was not originally intended as a pro-audio-only format. It was supposed to replace cassette tapes. However, the recording industry forced the implementation of a serial copy prevention system on the manufacturers, which effectively killed it for home use.
A related issue was that originally DAT only supported 48KHz mode, which was done intentionally to prevent direct 44.1KHz copies of CDs being made. A lot of people think the additional 3.9KHz is for extra audio quality, but it hardly makes a difference. The entire 22.05 - 44.1KHz range is only an octave.
Betamax is not, and has never been, a pro format. You are thinking of Betacam, which is a different Sony product.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Remeber that old movie, Exit to Eden? It was banned for a while here in Saskatchewan. It just made the movie more popular. It never hit the theatres
It certainly DID hit the theatres in Saskatchewan once the ban was lifted. I remember selling tickets to see that and people I've never seen before or since were coming in left and right to watch it! I remember one little old lady tottering in on her cane and asking, "Is this the movie that they banned?" I said, "Yes it is" and she put her money on the counter and said, "Oh good."
I know of one theatre owner who was orgainizing bus tours to go to Alberta to watch Exit to Eden before the ban was lifted.
You're right about it being a poor excuse for a movie. Had they left it alone and just slapped an R rating on it the thing would have played for one week in Saskatoon and Regina and quietly disappeared never to be seen again.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!